Better Together

Bangalore
So relieved now that the workshop on RT is over in Trivandrum. Back in Bangalore and back in office. Just the load of work that needs to be attended is mind boggling. Flying out on the 26th to Europe only to be back by mid March doesn't make life any easier. But well, occupational hazards and I am not complaining :)

What happened in Trivandrum?
More than hundred and fifty people turned up from the Industry, NGOs, Civil Societies, Panchayats, Government, Media and Academicians. Industry participants were probably the lowest of all. Various reasons were pointed to this poor turn out from the industry

1) Last minute invitation
2) Most of the invitees being from the medium segment of the business, they were busy with their guests and couldn't move out. For e.g Raheems Residency and Philipkutty's farm
3) Lack of clarity regarding the role of Equations along with the Kerala Tourism Department. Not many were clear about why Kerala tourism decided to rope in Equations especially after the campaign against the department when Kerala was nominated for the Destinations for Tomorrow awards from WTTC, London

What impressed me the most?t
1) To see the active and enthusiastic participation of the Panchayat members.
2) Demands from the Panchayats to have more tourism projects in their area
3) Industry members unanimously suggesting that they will work together with the Panchayats, Self Help Groups of women (similar to Kudumbashree units) and local community members.
4) Industry suggesting that if the quality of the products and services can be assured, they will be keen on procuring materials and skills locally which will definitely increase the positive economic linkages.

Did we lose focus on the first day?
The way the event was organised and structured, we didn't give enough time for all the sectoral subgroups to raise their concerns, discuss it and address it. Especially since it was after long time any sort of consultation with various stake holders were happening, most of the participants used this as an opportunity to raise their concerns about many things that were out of the focus of the workshop (defining responsibility of stake holders in tourism!).

I think it would have more successful if we had kept exclusive days for various stake holders. Even on the second day, the industry group sounded very cautious in terms of their participation. I guess with members from the media and even from NGOs that constantly criticise them being present there, not many of the industry felt comfortable enough to talk.

The way forward?
A committee of around 40 members from various stake holding groups have been identified to function as a working group. Once the documentation and transcription is done, the working group will be meeting together to work on the action plan.

Being part of this workshop was the most emotionally draining experience in recent times for me for various reasons. Intellectually, it was not that stimulating; but the challenge was to work with various kinds of people with that many different agenda in their mind!

Well, I hope I will be responsible (or brave?) enough to write about those experiences in the coming days!

© GP 2007

RT workshop

"Across the world, tourism has today become a vanguard of change, transforming countries and states into buoyant economies. However, there are several challenges that the industry faces like environmental degradation, degeneration of cultural heritage and social inequalities. More and more travelers are becoming sensitive to the impact their holidays have on local community and environment, and host communities are looking at avenues to optimize benefits from tourism"

"In keeping with this changing scenario, Kerala Tourism is now keen to put the concept of Responsible Tourism into practice. "... read more here on the initiative of ICRT India along with Kerala Tourism

© GP 2007

Paying the price

Bangalore

"Section 144 declared in Tirur, Tanur,Tanalur and Kalpakanchery police station areas"
"One more!. An auto driver from Iringavoor is fighting for life"
"Latest news - Three more attacks this morning. One Hindu and two Muslims. Situations becoming worse"

The above were SMS I received in a day from friends from Tirur. Since the murder of Ravi, an RSS worker last week, the town was gripped in fear and looks like its a killing field.

Five more have been stabbed and according to trust worthy field reports, most of these guys have nothing to do with religion or sects or alliances! Except for the guy murdered (he was an accussed number 3 in a murder where RSS workers, butchered a neo-muslim convert in Tirur several years back), rest of the guys became easy target for both Muslim and Hindu fundamentalist groups. Looks like none of the hardcore militants are targetted, instead the strategy seems to be to focus on those who stand on the fringes of ideologies

If not for the local names, this could be a news from an area where sectarian killings happens! This is from Malappuram District.

Welcome to the new reality of Kerala!!

A trend that started around Babri Masjid destruction in 1992, has been largely over looked. Political parties including the left busy appeasing minority and majority vote banks will take another decade or even more to understand the complexity of this vicious circle. Not restricting to politicians, I wonder what the so called cultural stalwarts like Sukumar Azhikode (who blatantly supported militant (of course masked!!) organisations like NDF) will have to say on these unfortunate incidents that is gripping various small towns of Kerala.

Signals were there for all to see. Look at these samples:

"Kerala, which is clearly becoming a sanctuary and a possible recruiting and training base for some religious fundamentalist groups with inter-State links. The activities of such groups have assumed dangerous dimensions. This is particularly true of northern Kerala, where a significant Muslim population suffers from a broad range of economic and social disabilities and the BJP, the RSS and its satellite organisations pursue an aggressive strategy of stoking communal sentiments. "

"In 1997, Chief Minister E.K. Nayanar told the Kerala Assembly that five to eight extremist groups were operating in northern Kerala and that they received funds and other forms of support from foreign countries, especially Iran and some countries in West Asia. He also said that the situation was "serious"."

Read more such reports here Concern in Kerala

On my way back from Trivandrum, I got down at around 4 am on the secluded dimly lit highway junction in Kuttippuram to go home. Similar to my Fort Cochin experience, the auto driver refused to take me in! After convincing him, he took me home only to share a hell lot of unbelievable stories that happened in Tirur area in the last one week. It definitely sounded like those scary stories we heard from friends who went through Bombay riots! According to him,"You know? Those who were dragging them through the streets were those boys whom they see daily in their neighbourhood!".

I can't imagine the situation where I will be attacked by someone just because I was born into some religion! Worse to doubt my fellow passenger or my driver just for the reason that he is a Muslim or a Hindu!

Well, this is in fact the reality!

© GP 2007

Noites de Havana!

Bangalore

Tired of debates and arguments on defining what is Responsibility in tourism in 'local context', I decided to take off from work this afternoon. Since all my colleagues are in Kerala this weekend, I had a luxury of being alone and decided to go home and watch Dirty Dancing instead .

Gosh! How much I miss dancing!!

Last time I watched this movie was with Maya in Vienna in her apartment. I had known her for almost 6 years after we met on Internet and been good friends throughout ever since. Even during my stay in Europe, somehow we missed meeting each other many times, until last year.

After struggles of missing baggage and waiting (for a change!), when I came out of the Vienna airport, there she was; anxiously waiting. As we both expected, the meeting was so normal as if we have been meeting each other in the same town on a day to day basis!

She was tensed about her relation but crazy in love with her Cuban boyfriend! Even though we have been discussing about him many times, I wasn't sure how serious this relation was, but then it was so obvious that night when she came back dead tired after dancing the whole night and told me "I have never been so happy!"

As Javier says in the movie, "Dancing is about being exactly who you want to be in a mad moment".

(Shame that I missed their invitation to go out for a Cuban night and instead decided to sleep!).

Now they are together and she is expecting a baby in February. May be it's time to visit the lovers again in before ITB Berlin. This time at the least I will be there with a relaxed mind, unlike last time when I was struggling with my problems with J!

Here goes the lovely couple:


© GP 2007

Just 20 minutes!

Bangalore

We reached the river side where we met Velutha around 1330. No one had any idea, how we trekked so swiftly. There wasn't a single part of our body that wasn't aching. Except for Ravi, I guess most of us were too tired for anything. He kept on clicking photographs, even dared to ask us to pose couple of times :)

May be he didn't really gauge the situation. Or he didn't think the danger of getting stuck for one more night in the middle of nowhere surrounded by wild animals and that too without any food! Anyways, it was good to have someone with energy oozing out at this situation.

We met "Rajan", a nephew of Velutha on the way who suggested that we trek directly to Nilambur through plains rather than attempting a tiring hike up to Meenmutty. Considering the fact that he was the first human contact since previous afternoon, it was a blessing to see him. It was a choice between 4 hours of climbing or 2 hours of trek to another district and then hire a jeep to reach back in Wayanad which will take another 4 hours by road. We chose the latter.Even after 4 hours of slow trek along the river we were still far away from any sort of human settlement. Rest of the trek was like a pilgrimage.

No one even whispered. Legs were almost falling apart, hunger was burning every known senses in the body and the fear that we might not be able to get out of the forest was too much to accept.

Finally we saw a tribal settlement, (A unfortunate intervention of forest department and Hill Area Development Authority where tribal are "rehabilitated" and brought into the main stream!!) where the poverty stricken community couldn't even offer us rice gruel. After hearing our misadventure, the forest officer on a patrol who saw us at the entrance, came along with us and asked the community members if they could give us some thing to eat.

To some of the tribal whom we met on the way, we kept on asking like "how far?", how long"! The distance to the rubber and spice plantation was "just 20 minutes sir"! Great. That twenty minutes came after another two hours literally in a tea shop run by the plantation workers!

"Even raw bananas tastes good after 22 hours of trek in two days without food!" In a tea shop that saved us finally. The workers were so wonderful. while we ate bananas and had black tea (with loads of sugar!), one of them went to his house and prepared wonderful lentils and rice gruel with some mouth watering pickle !
© GP 2007

Second day

Bangalore
All of us were up by 6 in the morning. Those who slept close to the burnt wood were up "half-baked and half-frozen"! We didn't waste much time and started exploring another route that Thomas assumed is the final way to Soochipara. (again!)

In an hour we were sure about one thing.

None of us wanted to spend another day roaming around in the forest where elephants were roaming around like cattle. Except for some sweets I had in my trousers and plenty of river water, we had no access to food.

We decided to trek back the whole distance we covered the previous day. At the least we knew the way and the time it takes to trek back.

Another ten hours!


Trekking back through semi deciduous forest

The fear was only in terms of climbing the last stretch from the foot hills to Meenmutty waterfalls. That is probably a climb from 200 metres ASL to 1300 in one stretch! Something that is quite possible on a normal day but not when fuelled by hunger, fatigue, fear and low morale.

As a last ditch effort, Anoop and I decided to climb a steep hill in front of us to check out the surrounding areas from a higher altitude. Halfway, we understood that both of us were literally risking our lives by climbing that slippery terrain with no equipments whatsoever. In half an hour, we reached on top only to see miles and miles of forest and mountains in front of us and signalled the rest of the team to continue the trek. We followed them.

From their onwards the speed in which we trekked was crazy! Those bamboo filled areas which we trekked carefully the previous day (considering the presence of elephants) were ignored completely and we were pacing as if we would just say a "Hello, nice to meet you" to the wild elephants and continue the run!

We just wanted to get out of the forest!

© GP 2007

Photos

Bangalore

Some of the pictures from the Meenmutty - Soochipara trek

AB off to an un-successful attempt

Meenmutty waterfalls in the second level

From a pool in the middle of the forest

© GP 2007